


As I Wend To Shores Unknown

by AwayLaughing



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Day At The Beach, Fourth Age, Gen, Happy Ending, Introspection, Post-Canon, Sea-longing, Valinor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 20:16:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20395519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwayLaughing/pseuds/AwayLaughing
Summary: The ocean is many things to many people. To Legolas, it is a beautiful threat and a terrible fate - but it is also a place of contemplation, love and promise.





	As I Wend To Shores Unknown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [datcilly](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=datcilly).

> Art by Cilly found here!
> 
> https://datcilly.tumblr.com/post/187416809141/to-the-sea-to-the-sea-the-white-gulls-are

Sometimes the gull song tugged at him. Not generally – not since he’d made the decision to leave – but sometimes all the same. Usually it passed after an evening, one spent among the trees, letting them whisper soothing thoughts of roots and friendly earth. These past weeks however, despite the trees singing of vibrant life now that grey winter had thoroughly given way to glorious, green summer. Enough people were starting to ask after him, noticing the way his attention drifted.

Sleep had not been kind, either. This was why he was wide awake and regretting it muchly when his steward swept in.

“Good morning, my prince,” Lamathel said, “the king is here.”

Legolas sighed, collapsing back into his bed. Of course someone had contacted his father, he thought. And of course his father was sweeping in with the sun – no doubt he was already plotting to bully Legolas back to Greenwood for a month or two. Legolas did not know that he had the wherewithal, right now, to fend off the sternly made request.

“Let him in,” he said after a moment. Had he been looking, he might have seen Lamathel’s raised eyebrows, but he wasn’t, and so he just lay there, awaiting Storm Thranduil.

“Look at him laddy, sleeping so late in the day.”

Gimli’s voice was like a siege weapon, wrenching Legolas’ eyes open. He stared, surprised for a moment at the twin – though mismatched – forms of Gimli and Aragorn in his bedroom doorway.

“What?” he asked, blinking in case they were mirages brought on by lack of sleep. “Why?” he added, because his mouth was not taking direction from his brain.

“You hear that laddy? He’s not happy to see us, it seems.”

“No!” Legolas said, flying out bed. “No I am I just – I thought you were my father.”

“Surely once you heard Gimli coming you were disabused of that notion?” Aragorn asked, a smile creasing his eyes. It had nearly a decade – and still Legolas rejoiced to see it every time.

“Haven’t you a court to oversee?”

“My courtiers are spending the summer in their country houses, and so the court is at a bare minimum. Arwen thinks it a good time to truly showcase we are a shared monarchy or equals. And apparently I am terribly annoying after so many years without travelling.”

“Oh yes of course,” Legolas, who had many letters to that very same effect from the queen herself. “Why did you not tell me you were coming?”

“Because watching you fly from your bed in your underthings is a rare joy,” Aragorn said, grinning.

“You have seen me naked as the day I was born,” Legolas said, walking over to his wardrobe all the thing. “You cannot think me easy to shame.”

“Not at all,” Aragorn said, a laugh in his voice. “But we so rarely get to sneak up on you Legolas, you must give us what we can get.”

“Speak for yourself,” Gimli said, “he’s easy enough to startle if you get him under ground.”

“In my own home, you mock me,” Legolas said, rooting out an outfit that wouldn’t send Lamathel into paroxysms of pain, whilst remaining functional. When he finished he stepped out – and paused. Gimli and Aragorn had taken seats where the could, and for the first time he noticed they were suspiciously dressed.

Gimli cackled when he saw Legolas eyeing them, nudging Aragorn. “Looks like he’s finally spotted the difference.”

“I do think I owe you dinner tonight,” Aragorn agreed. “You’ll need to pack, you know.”

“Pack?” Legolas repeated. “Where are we going?”

“Where else? The beach,” Aragorn said.

* * *

While Aragorn and Gimli may have snuck up on him, it quickly became apparent that everyone else was in on the plan too. They were away by noon, Legolas’ things packed with suspicious efficiency and travel foods already prepared for the trio. His people waved him off, promising the village would probably still be in-situ when he returned, and if not that they would try their best to at least get some talans up before the winter chill returned. Ithilien hardly got _ cold _, but it would not be entirely comfortable to shelter among the abandoned ruins of Gondor.

Trees were much better than stone, especially stones imprinted with the memories of old Númenor.

Of course, they didn’t actually go alone. The Rangers of Ithilien were not going to let their king traipse about the outlying lands without help, whether or not he had done so for decades previously. They kept mostly to the shadows though, rarely making themselves known, or at least not obvious.

Legolas could not complain, however. Watchers or not, three days into their journey he found he could sleep again. Maybe it was being on the road again, maybe it was the familiarity of Aragorn and Gimli as travelling partners, or the momentary release from their duties. The three of them looked nothing like the princes and kings of a new world – Aragorn was back in his familiar greens and browns. Gimli was not as smoothly done up as he’d been for the last years, nor did he look the part of the dirtied dwarven worker.

He imagined he did not look the elven lord, either. Of course he never thought of himself as such, so it was hard to imagine what they saw. As they drew closer to the coast, he wondered if maybe he seemed less like himself than he did in Ithilien. He felt as if, now that he was nearly there, it tugged at him. The tide pulling at his toes, dragging him inexorably west.

“Do you hear it?”

It had been just over a week, and Legolas had felt Aragorn’s eyes on him these last few days, so the question was not a surprise. In the dark, with the fire throwing light just enough for a circle of safety and light, it was no surprise that he was finally coming forward to ask. Many things were easier in the dark, now that Sauron did not haunt it. Evil things were not gone, of course, but they did not own it the way they had. Indeed, night was again the domain of Elbereth, after three long ages.

“Not yet,” Legolas said, not needing to ask what Aragorn meant. “I...feel it though. In my bones, as if the rhythm on the coast travelled through the ground and up my feet.”

“I used to fear the ocean, you know,” Aragorn said. “It made me think of Númenor, and of the failures of my line beyond the Ring. Or that there was enough of Elwing and Eärendil in me yet that it would sing to me and take me from my mother’s arms, from my duties to this world.” He flashed Legolas a smile. “I had a high opinion of myself, back then.”

“Fear grows easily, from such small seeds,” Legolas said, patting Aragorn’s knee. “And the mind is a fertile ground for such things.”

“Such wisdom from my unwise friend,” Aragorn said, and Legolas laughed softly.

“Do you remember the first time you repeated such things around me?”

“Of course, Elrohir proceeded to lecture me as I mucked out your horse’s stall, every evening, for the next week,” Aragorn said. “About the wisdom of knowing when rumour ought to be investigated before they were repeated. And on how not to speak to guests.”

“I did not mind, you were a curiosity to me,” Legolas said. “I knew men, of course, from Dale but only in passing and never one so Elvish in nature. You were very Noldorin at the time, but I think I managed to get some Silvan into you in the end.”

“I think we Rangers come by that easily enough,” Aragorn said, and after they fell into easy silence. The fire crackled at their backs, warm in the still evening. Gimli snored on occasion, but flipped over some few minutes after, returning to quiet breaths. Finally Aragorn tapped his shoulder. “Go rest, Legolas. Surely the trees have tales to tell, so long separate from elves of any persuasion. If you ask, I’m positive they will sing you a song.”

“They are rather friendly, and have long memories to share,” Legolas said. “Though I do not know if sleep will come.”

“It will,” Aragorn said, “just have faith.”

“But I do,” Legolas said, flashing him a grin. “I’ve stolen him from Gondor. It is quite the coup.”

Aragorn’s soft laughter mixed with the gentle spitting of the fire, and the slight breeze caught in the high branches of their copse. The trees did agree, after a quiet request, to tell him gentle tales, and Legolas did feel, after a while, the tension drain from his person. Sleep must have come after, because he was awoken by Gimli waving food under his nose, but he did not remember Irmo making any visits, nor coming to Legolas’ proverbial door.

He did however feel better, feeling the tone was set for the last stretch of their journey.

* * *

The day they finally arrived was nearly five weeks after their departure from Ithilien. Aragorn had directed them to an old city, long abandoned before even the fall of the Three Kingdoms. Summer had gone from gentle, tender yellow-greens to deep greens and riotous colour. It would have been faster, had they not been conducting a small scale census of the outlying lands along the way. Roofs were fixed, wells were relocated – woodmen were taught and gardens were rearranged and all along people who wished to talk were listen to.

All along they shed rangers as they went, some people staying to help or to address issues too big – or dangerous – for Aragorn. If that bothered Aragorn, he didn’t complain.

However the past few days had been quiet. The coastal people tended to cluster together more than those inland, likely because it was safer for the people on the water to have access to help. Or maybe the fish all clustered together – Legolas had never been the coast before the war. He knew nothing of fish. All he knew was that by the time they reached Lond Daer it was just the three of them.

They arrived to rain, and a churning ocean. Well no, the rain had been plaguing them for two days by the time they got to the coast. Though it was summer and the worst storms were several months away, the ocean was not calm and the rain was still what some might consider to be driving. Legolas found he did not mind however, too preoccupied with the tangle of contradictory emotions. Relief, because the strange tether that often seemed to tense was as lax as it had been in memory – but also tension because as he got closer the call of the west seemed to rise in urgency.

Around them, the remnants of Lond Daer had started to rise until they came to their highest points. There were no signs of in-habitation for several years, and so Gimli did not trust the stones to shelter them safely. Instead, they set up a tent and sat huddled and damp together, staring out into the darkness and waiting for, they hoped, morning and sunshine.

Alas, it was not to be, and they woke to the continued grey on grey on grey – though they were heartened to find it had at least lightened to a relentless drizzle, rather than a true downpour. By the time they bullied a fire into existence for supper, Aragorn was certain the morning would bring light.

“If not, I’m going to revise my advice about waiting for light to make sure the rocks don’t all fall on our heads.”

“I dare say if they haven’t tumbled down yet, they won’t,” Aragorn said, but there was cheer in his voice. Legolas suspected he was actually happy to be in a tent in the rain again. There was a familiarity to that sort of thing, and a decade was enough to look back at their lives before and start seeing the supposed simplicity. Of course if you thought about it long enough you remembered the sore limbs, the fear of attack, the weight of Fate dogging every step as if Mandos himself has deigned to come to Middle-Earth.

“And that is how we know you were raised by elves and not dwarves,” Gimli said. “Though from the stories Lady Galadriel told me, it has more to do with the quality of your elves than anything else.”

“Yes, I imagine had I been raised by Finrod Felagund things would be different,” Aragorn said, good humour in his voice. “Though I cannot say I would trade knowing you, Master Gimli for such a thing, no matter the honour it would bring. Nor the understanding of stone work.”

“Ach,” Gimli said, “this rain is making you soppy, your highness. Best hope your skills haven’t faded and it does indeed come to pass.”

“All things do, Master Gimli,” Aragorn said laughing, “one must simply wait!”

* * *

_ All things come to pass. One must simply wait _.

The words had been said in jest, but they followed Legolas through the night and into sleep. Indeed, they jerked him awake – or he thought they had until he found the real source of his wakefulness. The sun.

For a moment, so confused by his ocean-addled dream and days of rain left him blinking as he stumbled out of the tent. After a moment however he realized the sky was truly lighting and he grinned. He considered even waking Gimli, but instead he walked down to the water. The sand below his feet was wet, the water drawing back on itself already as the tides fell away with the moon.

Above him, the gulls were singing, probably has happy with the sun and clear skies as Legolas was. It pulled a shiver from him however, and he found himself staring near sightlessly as the sun rose. Around her, the sky lightened to green, anticipating the gold to come. Legolas wiggled his toes into the cool sand and ignored the way the wind tugged at his hair.

“It calls to you, doesn’t it?”

It spoke to how enraptured the sea held him that Legolas had not heard his friend approach, but he did not jump when the voice cut through his unwilling meditation. It had not been long – Arien was peeking now but not yet fully unveiled – so he had not fully blocked out everything around him.

“Lady Galadriel explained it to me, as did Lord Elrond before they left. The sea calls to elves, off to Aman.”

“Yes,” Legolas said, eyes fixed on the horizon. “I did not think it would happen to me – I’m a wood elf.”

“When did it strike you? Not just now,” Gimli said. “Aragorn seemed to know – but he has not spoken of it.”

“He wouldn’t, it is a private thing for most elves. It tears apart families, and has caused much grief over the ages,” Legolas said. “But no. It was Osgiliath – the singing of the gulls gave me a...a peek into the song sung by Ulmo, when Eru sand the world into being and invited the Valar to join him. It is impossible to put into words or sing to share, and if I could I would not least it prove to be alluring to all who hear it but it rests in me now. It is a call to the West, to leave this Middle-Earth to those who will one day pass beyond it into the unknown.”

Gimli did not respond, and Legolas looked around only for a moment. He looked like fire in the morning light, red hair alight, and dressed in russets and creams turned very warm by Arien’s incomparable flame. Legolas looked away quickly, not because he disliked the sight but because he did not want to miss Arien’s ascent. He had seen it many times, yes, but it was different now. The heart of the sky, rising as if from the heart of the world itself.

Gimli did not interrupt either, instead coming to stand next to him. Behind them, Aragorn must have been awake but maybe he was enjoying the sun in his own way – or perhaps he thought this was a conversation Legolas preferred to have in private.

Finally however, Gimli spoke again, an anxiety in his voice that was very unlike the steady dwarf.

“Are you going, then?”

“What, right now?” Legolas asked, amused despite himself. “I think it’s rather far to swim, you know.”

“Yes, and when you started to drown I wouldn’t go get you,” Aragorn said, finally joining them. “Breakfast is nearly ready. Did you want to head north?”

“To Mithlond?” Legolas asked. It was a good question – but an easy one despite the fact he hadn’t known the answer until it was asked. “No. I will not be availing myself of this Middle-Earth for at least a few years. Ithilien needs much work, and I think Faramir would feel terribly abandoned.” Not to mention how Aragorn and Gimli would feel. “I will stay, to see the Shadow’s echoes silenced and the light brought back to the land of the Moon. And,” he turned to look at his two mortal friends, “until good friends have passed into their own final journeys. I cannot follow you, and though they lay in different directions, our last unknown paths can be walked in tandem.”

Aragorn and Gimli held his gaze for a long moment, until they nodded, one after another. Something in him relaxed at the reaction – that they did not question or badger, simply accepted him. Or maybe it relaxed simply because he had finally acknowledged the truth. That some day Legolas would leave Middle-Earth. The land his father’s people had never left, and his mother's had returned to. The land his family had fought and loved so fiercely that it clung to their bones, whispered in their ears, ran in their very blood. Whose song beat in time to their hearts.

That he would finish the journey abandoned by his Sindarin and Silvan family. He could not retrace his mother’s steps – Beleriand was long lost beneath the waves and he suspected most everyone would warn against trying to cross the Helcaraxë anyhow, if it had still existed. A ship into the west was traditional now and safer by any measure – and so he would take one.

But for now, he was going to eat Aragorn’s breakfast, and then he would spend the day figuring out what you could do on a beach.

Perhaps he could learn about fish. 

* * *

October was not the usual time of year to come to the coast, but in some ways that was preferred. The wind tugged at their clothing and hair, demanding attention; a slight cold nipped at them without rancour – but it was quiet. The gulls cried on occasion, but otherwise it was just the ocean lapping inexorably at the sand. If he strained, Legolas thought he could hear it speaking.

_ Mine, mine, once and again mine _

Not, perhaps, the most comforting sound but a peek into the ocean’s jealous heart was a reprieve after so many long years.

“If you try to swim, I’m not coming after you,” Gimli said. Legolas had heard him approach some time ago, feet scuffing the sand with purpose, as if he thought he could start sneaking up on Legolas now when he’d never managed before.

“Still afraid you’ll sink?” Legolas asked, turning enough he could eye Gimli. His white hair, no longer marred with even the faintest suggestion of its brilliant copper, glowed in the diffuse lighting. The sun, hidden behind thin but endless clouds, offered no real colour other than a sort of calm grey.

“Pshaw,” Gimli said, a none-answer that meant yes. Legolas laughed.

“Fear not, I will keep you afloat, and I’ve no intention of swimming anywhere at this time of year,” he said. “I was simply listening. The ocean is a voracious lover.”

“Voracious lover?” Gimli said and Legolas nodded.

“Long ago, the ainur and Eru sung the land from the depths of the sea. Bit by bit, the sea works to bring it back into its grasp.”

“I thought Ulmo was the one you all liked, other than Elebreth,” Gimli said, coming a bit closer and eyeing the grey churning mass. White caps crested and broke, adding to the sense of controlled violence. It made Legolas think of a horse, longing to run but compelled not to, if only for a moment.

“Ulmo is lord of the ocean, but he is not the ocean itself,” Legolas said.

“Lord of the ocean,” Gimli said, “sounds to me rather like being the lord of a very large cat.”

Legolas laughed again. “Maybe you have a point, I suppose the breaking waves do look a bit like a cat arching its back.”

Gimli nodded, and then tugged his sleeve. “You worry me, with the staring. Come and eat and rest.”

“For you Gimli, because I would not worry you,” Legolas said, and let Gimli tug him back to the sheltering stones of long fallen Lond Daer. 

* * *

The next morning, Legolas woke to a pleasant surprise. Or, rather, a pleasant series of surprises. The first was the sun shining above them, warming the stones, as the newness of winter had yet to let it sink its claws in. The second was the smell of food, heating or even all ready to break the fast. The last, and most surprising, was a sea shanty that drifted up from the water’s edge, sung in accented but familiar words.

“The princling awakes,” Gimli said, standing over him and blocking the sun. It made his expression hard to read, but Legolas would guess feigned annoyance. “We’ve visitors.”

“I can hear that.”

“And girdle cakes and ham,” Gimli said.

“I can smell that,” Legolas replied gamely. Gimli huffed at that, and stepped away so Legolas could see his grin.

“They say they Círdan sent them down, to make sure we don’t do anything daft like try to build our own boat or launch from here.”

Legolas laughed, easing himself from his bedroll. “Ho kinsmen,” he called, standing with a stretch. Gimli made a _ herumph _ sound, eyeing him.

“No need to boast,” he said tartly and Legolas laughed again, watching the dwarf head back to the fire. It only took a moment to wash up and change, and soon he was seated at the fire and being served a healthy heaping of food. Círdan’s people were chattier company even than Gimli, who had always been rather verbose in his dealings. He bantered happily along with them while Legolas ate, regaling them with stories of their journey and their reasons for stopping at Lond Daer.

“One of Aragorn’s daughters is hoping to rebuild it,” Gimli said. “I’m to take a look around – for foundation purposes you see – and send her a letter before we go off.”

“Ah,” Neniel, the leader of the small troupe said. “We had concerns you planned to launch from here – the straight path is not impossible to get to, but it’s certainly needlessly difficult.”

“I am not so foolhardy a seaman as that,” Legolas said, laughing softly. “Nor would I risk dear Gimli.”

There was a pause, before Neniel grinned all the wider. “You truly do intend to bring master dwarf to Valinor with you?”

“Well, probably no further than Tol Eressëa,” Legolas said. That sparked a round of loud laughter, and Legolas felt Gimli eyeing him. “Yes Gimli?”

“It just occurred to me, I am going to spend the rest of my life surrounded by elven humour,” he said. Then he re-settled himself, stealing a girdle cake. “Good thing I’m going – keep you from going back to bad habits too early.”

“Gimli, I can truly say I shall never recover from you,” Legolas said.

“How very fair,” Neniel said, “because I suspect Master Gimli will never recover from a wood elf’s seafaring.” Her grin turned wicked, “I remember your father, during the Fall. You might think he had no relation to the Teleri at all.”

Gimli managed, somehow, to sit up more and Legolas ducked his head to hide a grin. Today the sun was high, and the beach of Lond Daer was not warm under them, but not so cold.

“You’ve stories about Thranduil?” Gimli asked, glee barely contained.

“Oh yes,” Neniel said. “I’m sure you do too.”

“Certainly,” Gimli said. Legolas, perhaps a bit disloyally, chuckled. Knowing the two would entertain one another, he took the chance to ease himself away, bringing his food along. Settling himself on a rock, he faced the ocean, eating slowly.

Aragorn was gone, he knew. Retracing old steps would not bring him back. Nor would taking his own unwalked paths bring them together again. But, he thought, his dear friend would not begrudge him the slow path. Nor would he begrudge him one last visit to the beach.

* * *

As much as he wished to laze about the sand and enjoy the last vestiges of summer heat while it clung to the sands, Legolas could not. Or, more specifically, Gimli would not allow it. There were rocks to stare at for great lengths of time, soil to dig up and study, and sand to inspect. Decades of friendship with, in his private opinion, one of the greatest of the Longbeards meant that despite his protests that he was no Noldor Legolas was not exactly useless when it came to rock work. He certainly was not equipped to judge whether or not the whole of Lond Daer was going to slide into the sea. He could however help judge its ability to grow food, support life and not destroy the nearby woods.

For four days they crawled all over the abandoned city, finding stories from the stone and the long gone humans alike. Legolas collected a handy little collection of later summer flowers – he did not know what would be in Aman with regards to plant life, so he wanted to collect memories of what he could in case anything was missing.

“Are those for someone?” Gimli asked on the second say, watching Legolas carefully press a single sacrificial flower into a notebook – a skill learned from Samwise’s good family many years past.

“Not in particular, but I suppose I would like to share with my mother,” he said, thinking. “I don’t know what she would remember from this world, and I know not how much time she spent on this coast before she married my father.”

“Ah,” Gimli, who thought it unbearably sad that Legolas did not really remember his mother, said. “Not doubt she’ll enjoy that.”

“And if not, I’m sure Lady Celebrían will, if anything her family told me was true,” Legolas said with cheer, sealing the last flower in. “Now – have we some sand to stare at again? Or do we get to light it on fire now?”

Now however, the collecting and arson alike were finished. Gimli had written up notes, and his report would be made and sent from Mithlond while the boat was being built. Something, if they wanted to leave before the spring, they would need to get on.

And yet, Legolas found himself stripped to his pants, staring out at the great blue expanse in front of him. Gimli was off to the left, guarding their otherwise packed bags, waiting. Legolas wondered why it seemed Gimli was so much less concerned about going – when the ocean was not singing in _ his _ ear, calling him ever west.

“Gimli,” he said, not turning around. “Have you really no regrets?” He'd asked a donzen if not a hundred times, and while another was unlikely to change the answer, it might finally settle his unease at the thought of tearing Gimli from his home.

“Laddy, I am leaving this world one way or ‘nother no matter what,” Gimli said, coming to stand next to him. “I made my peace with that when I agreed to try and bring peace to Middle Earth, and follow a hobbit into the arms of the Enemy himself. Making sure you don't lose your fool head on the open ocean is not something I'll ever regret, nor is seeing the wonders I've heard of. Besides, I've a conversation I've been wanting to have.”

“I see,” Legolas said. “I suppose that simplifies things, doesn’t it?”

“In a way,” he said.

* * *

The rising sun looked different, somehow. At first Legolas hadn’t noticed, too busy doling out letters, reconnecting with long lost family and friends and fielding dinner invitations from long dead heroes. Finally however he had a little time, and he found himself on a quiet stretch of beach, enjoying the steady golden rise, how it turned the water so many shades of green and blue.

“Do you remember the first time you ever saw the sun like this?” Gimli asked.

Legolas didn’t turn to look at him, but smiled, knowing Gimli would hear it in his voice.

“Of course,” Legolas said. “We had a ghost army with us, I can hardly forget.”

Gimli laughed. “Alright, the first time we stopped to savour it,” he said and Legolas finally turned to look at him. His hair was still white – the blessed realms did not reverse the flow of time, simply slow it and lighten its burdens after all. He was dressed in russets and reds and creams however, and he was barefoot and strong backed. He was also strangely solid in this land of the immortal, where times sometimes seemed either hazy or thrown into too-sharp relief.

“I do,” he said, meeting Gimli’s eyes. “And it was very dear to me – I will never forget.”

“Nor shall I,” Gimli said. “A shame there’s no one waiting to feed us bacon, now though.”

“If we trek back up the cliff we can probably prevail upon Frodo and Bilbo,” Legolas said. “Or even lady Celebrían or my mother.”

“It’s not the same,” Gimli said with a sigh.

“No, it’s not,” Legolas admitted. “Maybe, when you go, he’ll be waiting for you with some.”

“Now there’s a thought,” Gimli said with a laugh. “If he had a way of watching us, I’m sure he would too, and now be plotting.”

Legolas laughed, seeing very much the truth in Gimli’s words. “Yes, he certainly would,” Legolas. “Or he’d say he was dead and you could make your own beach bacon.”

“In which case I will prevail upon hobbits and mothers,” Gimli said with more dignity than the words deserved. “But I am hungry – are you coming back up?”

“Yes, there will be other sunrises,” Legolas said. “Though I do like getting over the water.”

“As do I laddy,” Gimli said. “And you’re carrying your own boots.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This one got away from me a little - became much more introspective than I intended, and I had to try and reign my undying love of the ocean in as well. Hopefully however everyone enjoys this, for all so very little happens!


End file.
